In this guide, you’re going to see the 7 best landscape lenses for your Micro Four Thirds camera.
Whether you have a Panasonic, Olympus or some other brand’s system, the beauty of these lenses is that they fit on all different cameras. If you’re new to photography, this can easily be overwhelming since you have so many options to choose from.
For our guide, we focused on image quality, sharpness and value for money. Basically, everything you need in a landscape lens without it being overly expensive; plus something you can use for other scenarios as well.
We go through each lens specifically and talk about its strengths, and before that we quickly summarize what the most important factors are when it comes to landscape photography.
Selecting the Best MFT Lens for Landscape Photography
Traveling, exploring, waiting for the beautiful light and simply enjoying the time in nature can be amazing. Trying to figure out your gear shouldn’t be what you’re worrying about. Our objective is to ‘simplify photography‘ so you can both capture and enjoy the moments.
While your camera is an important tool in capturing landscape shots, the lenses you use play a far bigger role. The most important factor is the focal length you choose. Although you could, technically speaking, photograph with just about any lens, going with an extremely wide angle will allow you to capture so much more. As well as show your viewers more of the situation or scene.
So what is the ideal size lens for landscapes? That really depends on what you prefer to shoot. Our lists below are arranged from widest (capture as much of the scene as possible) to longest (isolate wildlife or a specific subject).
What’s Important for Landscape Photography?
Just to remind you, Panasonic cameras don’t have stabilization built into the body, whereas Olympus cameras do. If it matters for your photography, make sure to pay attention whether the lens has it or not.
Here are the 5 most important factors that make a good landscape lens.
Focal Length – Wide angle lenses are most commonly used for landscape photography. Best focal length for Micro Four Thirds cameras is anything between 12mm and 150mm. A wide angle allows you to capture beautiful scenery, whereas a telephoto lens allows you to crop more precisely. Why? Because when you’re hiking or traveling, a lot of amazing scenes aren’t directly in front of you, but far away. By having such a long zoom, you can isolate that specific part. Nonetheless, the majority of landscape shots are taken with wide angle lenses, zoom or prime.
Aperture – Most landscape photographers never shoot with big apertures, like f/1.4 or f/2.8. Instead, when you want everything sharp in your shot, you choose something like f/5.6, f/8 or even smaller, because the depth of field will be so small. The only scenario where having a big aperture would be useful is if you photograph at night and need as much light as possible, but unless that’s you, you shouldn’t worry about buying the lens with the biggest aperture if you know you will never shoot that big anyways.
Auto Focus – It’s great to have reliable and fast auto focus if you don’t have the time to focus manually. For traveling, hiking or just shooting on the go, all of the lenses below have good auto focus so you can expect shots that are perfectly in focus. However, many landscape shooters (that also carry a tripod) often prefer focusing manually.
Weight & Size – Photographing is fun, carrying a ton of heavy gear is not. Make sure to look at how big and heavy a lens is, especially if you always travel with lots of other stuff as well. While MFT mirrorless cameras and lenses are great for landscape shooters due to their compactness, some people may still prefer carrying 1 zoom instead of a few primes, or simply just a pancake lens.
Image Stabilization -As mentioned above, IS is a welcome feature for landscape shooters, especially when you’re tired or shooting in low light. Most wideangle lenses don’t have it since this is more problematic when shooting telephoto, but it simply doesn’t hurt if the lens has it. Olympus puts IS into their bodies, Panasonic into the lenses (some cameras already have it).
Image Quality – It’s all about image quality, sharpness and colors. You want good center and corner sharpness, especially if you print large. Panasonic has excellent glass quality and we made sure to select lenses that offer a lot for the money.
Best Micro Four Thirds Landscape Lenses:
Olympus M. Zuiko 12mm f/2
Olympus M. Zuiko 17mm f/1.8
Panasonic Lumix G 20mm f/1.7
Olympus M. Zuiko 7-14mm f/2.8 ED PRO
Panasonic Lumix G 12-35mm f/2.8 II OIS
Panasonic Leica DG 12-60mm f/2.8-4
Olympus M. Zuiko 12-100mm f/4 PRO
We discuss all of these lenses below, but first let’s go through what matters when buying a lens for landscape.
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Olympus M. Zuiko 12mm f/2
The Olympus M.Zuiko 12mm f/2 is a premium quality wideangle lens for the Micro Four Thirds system offering excellent image definition coupled with sturdy construction. Equivalent to a 24mm focal length in the 35mm format, the M. Zuiko 12mm is well suited to landscape photography. However, thanks to its great manual focus features, rugged weather-sealing, and a durable all-metal build, it clearly also begs to be used for candid street shots.
Olympus’s advanced still and movie compatible autofocus system guarantees you won’t miss a moment, while excellent image stabilization rules out camera shake. Pulling the focus ring backwards instantly switches the lens to manual focus mode and simultaneously reveals a clear distance scale. This feature makes it simple to set focus at a predetermined distance, in order to rapidly capture subjects “from the hip”.
The lens does not suffer from any noticeable color aberrations and only at the widest of apertures does some slight blurring become detectable in the corners. What’s more, lens flare and ghosting have largely been eliminated thanks to Olympus’s low-reflection “ZERO” lens coating.
Featuring a rounded seven-blade diaphragm, this lens produces pleasing bokeh when used wide open. However, at 12mm this will never be your first choice of lens for portraiture. Instead, with such a wide field of view, the 12mm f/2 is better suited to fast shooting in crowds, or capturing sweeping vistas of either the night sky or more terrestrial landscapes.
You can buy it at Amazon or see more reviews here.
Olympus M. Zuiko 17mm f/1.8
The Olympus M. Zuiko 17mm f/1.8 is a discrete and fast lens for Micro Four Thirds cameras. Boasting excellent optics and weighing just 4.23 oz/120g, it’s a great choice for everyday shooting. Fast maximum aperture, silent AF, and compact dimensions also make it well suited to unobtrusive documentary and snapshot photography in low light conditions.
At 17mm, focal length is equivalent to a 34mm lens in the 35mm format. I.e. field of vision is moderately wide, but not so wide that you must be standing on your subject’s toes in order to frame their face large in the shot. Housed in a solid, stylish, all-metal casing, optical quality is identical to Olympus’s “premium” 12mm f/2 lens, producing ultra sharp, high contrast images from f/1.8 through to f/22.
The 17mm also comes with the same handy AF/MF focus selection mechanism as its wider sibling. This allows you to rapidly snap the lens into manual mode, estimate distance, and then quickly set focus and fire off a shot before the subject is even aware. Silent autofocus makes the 17mm well suited to video too.
This is faster and more versatile than the 12mm, and also costs sightly less. Meanwhile, staying within the 17mm range, the f/1.8 is way more affordable than Olympus’s slightly faster “PRO” f/1.2 offering. However, what you save in money you lose in the form of the PRO lens’s superior optics and weather proofing.
You can buy it at Amazon or see more reviews here.
Panasonic Lumix G 20mm f/1.7
The super-slim Panasonic Lumix G II 20mm f/1.7 is a fast pancake lens for the Micro Four Thirds format. An all-metal barrel and lens mount update the cheaper build-quality of the Mark 1, making it a sturdy and compact choice for all-round shooting. Mounted on a suitably small body, it can easily be thrown in a coat pocket for quick and candid photography without compromise on image quality: ideal for travel, street, documentary and other discrete low-light uses.
In addition to being extremely sharp and displaying no color fringing, the lens is fast, compact, lightweight and well-built. It’s also quite cheaply priced. What’s more, 20mm is identical to a 40mm lens (35mm format equivalent): making it an excellent compromise between a standard and a wide angle lens. All in all then, this is a handy little all purpose piece of glass you can rely on to pull something out of pretty much any imaginable shooting situation.
On the downside though, autofocus in low light is really quite slow. To make matters worse, the focus mechanism is also quite noisy, meaning that for video use you’ll need to focus manually. Furthermore, if camera shake is a concern, you’ll have to use this on a body with on-board image stabilization, as the lens itself does not offer any of its own. Those looking for better spec within a similar focal range (but willing to spend a little more) should investigate the 15mm f/1.7 Leica Summilux as an alternative.
You can buy it at Amazon or see more reviews here.
Olympus M. Zuiko 7-14mm f/2.8 ED PRO
The Olympus M. Zuiko ED 7-14mm f/2.8 PRO lens is an excellent ultra wideangle zoom lens for the Micro Four Thirds format. Despite being relatively lightweight, the lens is satisfyingly solid and ruggedly built. Meanwhile, hermetic sealing keeps it protected when shooting in difficult terrain. Its wide field of view, sharp optics and constant fast aperture of f/2.8 throughout all zoom settings makes this an ideal lens for landscapes, interiors, night sky photography, and street shooting.
Equivalent to a 14-28mm lens in the full frame 35mm format, this is the only wide angle lens you will really need. There is a little softness detectable at the image corners, and some flare is still occasionally present when shooting into the light, but there’s no noticeable ghosting or color aberrations and overall this is an extremely crisp, high resolution lens. What’s more, Olympus’s ZERO Coating means that the lens performs well even under challenging conditions, such as when pointing directly towards a strong light source.
With the addition of Olympus’s separately available waterproof housing, this lens can be used underwater for shooting spectacular wideangle sub-aqua seascapes.
You can buy it at Amazon or see more reviews here.
Panasonic Lumix G 12-35mm f/2.8 II OIS
Equivalent to a 24-70mm lens in the 35mm format, the Panasonic Lumix G 12-35mm f/2.8 II is a great all-round zoom covering all the main focal lengths the average photographer will need for general shooting. With a constant aperture of f/2.8 across all zoom settings, this is a lens that is fast enough to satisfy everyone except the most demanding of low light shooters, while also being versatile enough to deal with nearly any photographic style or situation.
Whether you shoot portraits, landscapes, travel, documentary, sports, or events, if you only have space to pack a single lens in your bag, this will likely be the one you’ll reach for.
The lens is pin sharp at the center, with only slight softness detectable towards the corners. Meanwhile, Panasonic’s nano surface coating keeps flare, ghosting and color aberrations to an absolute minimum. Bokeh appears very pretty, with nice rounded light-circles.
When it comes to shooting video, image stabilization has been much improved compared with the Mark 1 version of this lens. There’s also a handy switch on the side of the barrel to toggle OIS on or off, allowing you to change modes mid-take.
The 12-35mm f/2.8 is highly portable and reasonably compact, at least when contracted. Aside from the metal mount, the lens is largely made of plastic, so it’s not as rugged as some of Panasonic’s other lenses for the MFT format. However, it is dust and splash proof.
You can buy it at Amazon or see more reviews here.
Panasonic Leica DG 12-60mm f/2.8-4
If you’re looking for the all-around super zoom, the Panasonic Leica DG 12-60mm f/2.8-4 is a solid workhorse for serious photography at a huge range of focal lengths. It’s got a relatively good aperture range, although this is not something you will use in really low light situations. For this reason it will be of most interest to photographers producing landscapes, architecture, interiors, and even portraits – provided ultra-shallow depth-of-field is not required.
Panasonic’s Nano Surface Coating means that there’s almost no flare whatsoever, at least when shooting stills, and only the subtlest of chromatic aberrations are visible. Sharpness is generally excellent, although there is some detectable fall off at corners – particularly when used wide open at around the 50mm zoom setting. A nine-blade aperture makes for some very nice bokeh, and color rendering is highly attractive.
The exterior, mount, and lens hood are of metal construction, and the overall build inspires confidence. As does the fact that the lens is dust-, splash- and freeze-proof right down to -10c.
On the negative side, the 12-60mm’s widest aperture of f/2.8 is only available when zoomed out to the 12mm setting. Nonetheless, the Leica 12-60mm is faster than Panasonic’s otherwise comparable f/3.5-5.6 Lumix 12-60mm. The Leica is also optically superior to the Lumix, however for those concerned about either price, weight, or size, the Lumix offers some advantage in all three areas.
You can buy it at Amazon or see more reviews here.
Olympus M. Zuiko 12-100mm f/4 PRO
The Olympus M. Zuiko ED 12-100mm f/4.0 IS PRO is a great all-round workhorse for those less concerned with fast glass and more in need of a single dependable lens they can take everywhere. If you’re the kind of photographer who strives to get each image crystal sharp from background to foreground, it’s likely that you rarely ever shoot with the diaphragm at wider settings anyway. Offering an enormous choice of focal lengths in one single compact and portable zoom, this a great solution for landscape shooters who don’t want to be weighed down by a bag full of heavy prime lenses as they trek off into the wilderness.
If you’ve used any of the other lenses in Olympus’s PRO series, you’ll know that the optics are generally top notch. That’s also the case here, despite the wide range of magnification that the 12-100mm has to deal with. Providing equivalent coverage to a 24-200mm lens in 35mm format, it is nonetheless surprisingly compact, especially when compared to a similar setup on a full frame DSLR.
The barrel is of sturdy metal construction and is hermetically sealed against the elements. It also features Olympus’s signature manual focus snap selection ring and comes with a well-designed and securely-fastening lens hood that will not fall off as you pull the lens out of your bag.
Admittedly the 12-100mm is not cheap. But who would expect a professional lens to be cheap anyway? It’s still likely less expensive than a set of primes to cover an equivalent range of focal lengths. For those in need of a wider maximum aperture than this can provide, Olympus’s 12-40mm f/2.8 PRO is the lens to look at.
You can buy it at Amazon or see more reviews here.
Best Micro Four Thirds Landscape Lenses:
Olympus M. Zuiko 12mm f/2
Olympus M. Zuiko 17mm f/1.8
Panasonic Lumix G 20mm f/1.7
Olympus M. Zuiko 7-14mm f/4 ED PRO
Panasonic Lumix G 12-35mm f/2.8 II OIS
Panasonic Lumix G 12-60mm f/2.8-4
Olympus M. Zuiko 12-100mm f/4 PRO
For great landscape photography tips, check out this 500px article and 20 Tips from OutdoorPhotographer.
While the right lens is the most important thing to complement your camera, remember that the speed of your memory card is also extremely important. There are a lot of memory card brands out there so it can be a bit overwhelming to figure out which on is compatible with your camera.
To get your creativity going also visit our inspiration gallery.
